Photobiological studies with dioxetanes in isolated DNA, bacteria, and mammalian cells

1,2-Dioxetanes, efficient chemical sources of triplet excited carbonyl compounds, were observed to be genotoxic in isolated DNA, bacteria, and cultured mammalian cells. In superhelical DNA of bacteriophage PM2, various alkyl- and hydroxyalkyl-substituted dioxetanes (1) induced predominantly endonuclease-sensitive base modifications and only few single strand breaks. With a specific endonuclease a small fraction of the base modifications was identified as pyrimidine dimers. The psoralen dioxetane (2a) or PsD bound photochemically to calf thymus DNA at the alpha-pyrone ring of psoralen (fluorescence measurements). Photobinding was also observed when calf thymus DNA was incubated with psoralen and 3-hydroxymethyl-3,4,4-trimethyl-1,2-dioxetane. In Syrian hamster embryo fibroblasts and HL-60 cells, dioxetanes induced DNA single strand breaks. The alkyl- and hydroxyalkyl-substituted dioxetanes 1 and 2 were efficiently inactivated by cysteine, glutathione, ascorbic acid, tocopherol, NADH and FADH2. While dioxetanes 1 and 2 were not mutagenic in Salmonella typhimurium strain TA100, benzofuran dioxetanes 3 exhibited substantial effects. Further data imply that presumably a mutagenic intermediate with a lifetime of a few minutes is produced from the benzofuran dioxetane.